Maybe the '80s Really Did Rock

"It was never clear what they were trying to do. It was completely impossible to discern their goals!" exclaims Trouser Presser Ira Robbins in the hotly mooted new documentary Color Me Obsessed: A Film About the Replacements. Director Gorman Bechard  the mastermind behind the 1987 black comedy Psychos in Love  lensed this love letter to the grubby post-punk band that formed in 1979 in Minneapolis and then cratered spectacularly onstage on July 4, 1991, in Chicago. The interviews: Hüsker Dü, Babes in Toyland, the Decemberists, Legs McNeil, Robert Christgau, George Wendt, Dave Foley and ... Tom Arnold?! Yet it's not just that cavalcade of celebrity that propels the film  it's the stories of average, devoted fans tracked down by Bechard to share their memories of seeing the band live and how that experience transformed them forever. The Replacements were nothing if not the shining zenith of everything musical that was not average as they anticipated the dawn of punk turning into alternative into modern brunchwave. Downtown Independent Theatre, 251 S. Main St., dwntwn.; Fri., Nov. 4, 8:30 p.m.; $12. (213) 617-1033, downtownindependent.com.Fri., Nov. 4, 9 p.m.; Sat., Nov. 5, 8:30 p.m., 2011